May 28 -- Toledo zoo, part 5

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There is a rather large amphitheatre, built (we read on a plaque) by the WPA. It is interesting to look at. Its construction clearly employed artisans with many different talents.

Sometimes there are concerts, sometimes there are free-flying bird shows.....







Nearby are the cheetahs. The Toledo Zoo was one of the first zoos in the USA to successfully breed them.

They were napping, but I couldn't resist one shot....





The zoo was getting ready to shut its doors to regular patrons, but a wedding party was just arriving.

Isn't it cool that people love the zoo enough to get married there?

(the old carnivore building is now a cafeteria -- note sign for Beastro in upper left)





A bit more black and white, from an area with official waterbird zoo inhabitants. (this guy was motoring back and forth, and seemed to be alone, which is not a preferred state for swans.....)







Doesn't she look demure, in contrast to his red-eyed in-your-face-ness?

If you click to embiggen, you can get a better look at the gorgeous color on their wings.....





Love these banners outside the aviary. Love the colors, love the graphic.





Dogwood. Shadows!





So you walk back to the bridge across the busy street, walk up the ramp, across, down. Walk back to the entrance, walk past the nearer parking lot.

You have been on your feet all afternoon (with a couple of snack breaks -- wish they sold Dove bars instead of cheap tasteless softserve.....).

It was a pleasant day, if you could stay in the shade and the breeze, but you spent enough time on the pavement in the sun that you are sweaty, and all sticky from sun screen. (I firmly believe in sun screen, but I hate it.)

Your car is nearly at the end of this sidewalk, and over to the right a bit..........





Luckily the fact that you left the zoo right at 5:00 (on a Friday, no less), doesn't seem to matter. No traffic issues until we got nearly to Ann Arbor, where we know all the alternatives when we get off the highway earlier than we'd planned because traffic is nearly dead stopped on the route we'd thought we'd take.



A good day.

Love the Toledo Zoo.

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